Nuclear Dawn

Tribute to Nuclear Dawn Division

2013-11-20T16:58:00Z

One year has passed, but we remember.

We remember how TAW.net brought an unforgettable game experience, how we played for fun to succeed and win. And there were no losers, never. We were friends who shared positive emotions to make bounds that will never break, we were comrades who never gave up, we were architects of our friendship fortress, we were together, even separated by a distance unknown.

It's hard to tell now how it all began, but strings of fate played that music our success for more than a year providing entertaining game play hours none will ever be able to forget. My long adventure with TAW community began with Nuclear Dawn, game that one of my friends suggested to me when we were enjoying most random video game industry products. But that one was special, I knew it from the very first minute of game play. I remember how I joined the server, played for a while and at some point during the game I've spotted enemy on the roof, took my machinegun and with the help of skill and luck made a headshot from a sniper distance. That was an epic shot, but back then I didn't know about the chain of events that will follow, because that "enemy" was actually Ekis, man who invited me to join TAW.net ranks. Onboarding process finished, but the story of most epic community action has just begun.

I remember how at first I wasn't participating in the ongoing TS discussions, was silent most of the time. I was learning, observing how communication happened between members of the clan, it was a new experience for me, being a part of such large group of people, dedicated players. That was accompanied by the class I chose to play in the game - stealth. Yes, "stealth" was pretty much who I was during those first months, time when the first defcon was going to it's conclusion. When defcon was over we continued to play as four new platoons. But in the end it was so fun even I couldn't stay silent forever, enough experience was gathered and I stepped up as an SL, still stealth, but now a stealth leader as well. By the time defcon 2 started I was playing primarily as a support class, but to be more precise I played every class depending on the situation. That progress was parallel with my development in community ranks, as a mutually agreed decision with the platoon I was playing with (M.A.D.), I became a PL, and a new era began.

I can tell one thing, I have played with people on the internet - TAW is different. I had a feeling I know people I was playing with for a long time, that feeling in particular made me very proud of being a part of TAW community, being a part of ND division. Each player was unique, an individual, person with attributes most of the time exceptional, and still, like a piece of the puzzle everyone found a place they ideally fit in this game and community. Players - supports, siege units and assaults, or officers, oh yes, officer squad in our division was like a pantheon in ancient Greece, so much respect they had and always will have, so much work was done, so much things accomplished that wouldn't be possible without them. I want to say it again, thank you! Thank you for making this happen!

TAW : Ekis, Dapeople, Icewhynd, metamorphyse, Chimera, DirtyDozen and others, thank you!

I also need to mention the dedication of the NA side of the ND division, comparing to EU there were less people, but that of course only made them closer to each other. TAW| Gumby - he was a citadel of the NA castle, he was a conduit between his division members, one of the most dedicated player and officer I've seen, he made each and every practice match unique, invented new approaches, basically he was doing a lot of stuff that was not necessary, yet with him it became real. In the end of the defcon 2 he received a Resilience Award "for showing great tenacity with sustaining the NA side of Nuclear Dawn". Congratulations to you again, Gumby, you've more than earned it!

But, as everything in this life, nothing lasts forever. Nuclear Dawn, regardless of being one of the most fascinating games I've ever played, did not had enough advertising, and was losing it's popularity. Most underrated game I've ever seen, I still can't believe that happened. Unfair, sad, undeserved conclusion.

What happened in that period of October-November 2012 was a hard event, though most of the players including me moved to the NS 2 division, some had left. Part had joined other divisions, or left after some time. I recall that the question was asked: "Are we here for the game or for community?". Now when I think about it, I clearly understand it was not something we could chose from, the answer was always an alloy of both options provided.
Nevertheless, we have to move on. Life is never the same, it's true beauty lies in change, would it be changes for better or worse, I trust in choices we make, because they show who we truly are.

And that we will always remember. Please, enjoy the anniversary tribute movie I've made, it is the monument of my gratitude to TAW.net, especially to all people who were part of ND division.

Written by ExorcisT

Saying goodbye to Nuclear Dawn

2012-11-04T16:05:00Z

Nuclear Dawn has been around for over a year now, for most people it is an unknown game.

Being an unknown game made the community small but strong, we amazed ourselves when we came to have over 80 members at one point.

The community we started is still together and going strong, but not in ND any more.

Medals

3 hours ago we had our last ND mandatory, at the same time we gave out the awards for DEFCON.

This really marked an end to both the internal tournament and the division.

We awarded the Silver Star to Mort for being a remarkable backstabber.

The Bronze Star got divided between our 3 biggest killing machines:

Plague for being a fantastic sniper, a real head hunter.

Overkillbunny for being a team player and being able to push a flank on his own.

ColleX for being a multi-class shooter.

Battlefield Leadership Medal to ExorcisT for leading MAD to being an unstoppable force till eliminations.

Medal of Resilience to Goorge, and the Battlefield Medal of Resilience to Leech;

For taking their platoon through all the ruff spots and coming out strong and almost eliminating MAD.

Battlefield Improvement Medal to Leprykon for become a first class medic.

DirtyDozen got awarded the Conduct Medal for being the embodyment of the community.

Meritorious Service Award to Icewhynd for always being there to help out.

Icewhynd also got a gump for letting his DC go against instructions to not to use a DND folder when he was aware of it, while his DC was not.

And then i got a gump for using open and closed signs instead of DND.

Gumby got a Medal of Resilience for showing great tenacity with sustaining the NA side of Nuclear Dawn.

Recyclic got the Distinguished Service Cross for being the constantly reliable guy and making numerous contributions in all aspects of the Community.

Lastly the DC got the Commanders award for Leading the Nuclear Dawn Division well beyond the expectations put on a DC, and doing so when the need to do so was at it's greatest.

The End

Now i'm officially the last member in the Nuclear Dawn Division. After hundreds of mails and hours of work all members transferred.

We transferred 39 member, triggered 3 spam filters, and killed my "s" key.

That's it from Nuclear Dawn.

Metamorphyse ND DC

Sunday ND Briefing - and more

2012-06-17T17:33:00Z

We had an Officers night at the ND Division last night.
All the guys are really working hard to make this the best Division in TAW,
so it always feels good when an opportunity to bling them out presents itself.

For long and reliable Service

Dapeople and DirtyDozen have been in TAW for 2 years!
Time flies when you are having fun, and it seem like only yesterday that Dirty and me were trying insane tactics with
artillery propelled infantry air-strikes.
True story!

Congratulations dudes, it's always fun with you guys around, and I hope to give a few more of these out.

New CO for EU Battalion

Metamorphyse is moving on to the CO position, and while so doing receives a bump up to Captain.
Congrats, man!

We wouldn't like him to leave the XO-Office empty handed though, not after all the things he have done to the place.
He is therefore the recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal.
Both me and Dirty are really impressed with the way the XO-Office have been run, so well deserved Meta!

Its dangerous out there,
take one of these...

New XO

Taking over the well warmed up seat in the XO-Office is Recyclic.
Recyclic receives a bump up to Second Lieutenant as well as the following advice:
Cat-herding is an art-form, dude!

Other promotions

Icewhynd receives a promotion as well and his new rank is First Lieutenant.
He have done an awesome job in keeping the ND-Division populated (despite the XO's best efforts ),
keeping the bootcamp manual updated and still having time for training new DI's.
Well deserved, Ice!

There is another promotion batch coming as well.
Rumour has it that it will be in connection with the restart of DEFCON 2

Servers

The new server is in need of some tweaking as for ports to all the ND instances.
We (meaning the Server Administrator, Weirdlooking) is working on it, and it should be resolved shortly.
The problem is that we are trying to run 8 instances at the same time, which is causing a conflict in the port assignments.
For now, we have to make due without the dedicated Training servers, but the Match servers are still available if any member needs them.

Also coming up on the new machine is a second Pub play server.
Pub #2 will have custom maps and Friendly Fire on.
As we know from our internal matches, Friendly Fire isn't - so lets hope that this will promote some aiming on the Pub

NA practices - still awesome

If you have some time over in the middle of the night, or just happens to live nearby, I would recommend you to take a visit to the ND NA practices.
Dapeope have made weird and awesome game modes into an art-form, and it's always a treat to play a few rounds
with the NA folks. I suggest you try it out!
NA plays Wednesdays at 21:00 EST (03:00 CET, Thursday in EU).
Dapeoples flight attendance approach alone makes it worth the visit

ND Keys still available

In case you missed it, I still have a bunch of keys to give out to active players.
If you know someone that might be interested in the game, or a friend that you think should join our merry band,
then let me know and I send you a key. Details in this post:
http://taw.net/forums/p/3591/16437.aspx

Scrim coming

Just after the Sunday Mandatory, I got contacted by the nice folks from Chaos.
They would fancy a scrim with us, and I think we should oblige.
If you are interested, the primary time for this is this Sunday around dinner EU / noon-ish NA.
More details will be given as they are ironed out, but in the meantime you can send a mail to
Metamorphyse at his @taw.net address. First come, first served.

ND Survey

Finally, I would urge you all to take this Nuclear Dawn Survey:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dDhRQWprdU1HR0Rub19GbDFNcF9ONkE6MQ
This will help the developers to know where to focus their limited resources.
It's not every game that have developers that are as dedicated to their games as InterWave, so please take the time
to let them know what you think.

That is all for now, shoot you guys in the face later!

Promotional Chain Reaction

2012-03-02T07:30:00Z

There have been a lot of shuffling around in the last week as people with old positions have found new
ones, causing something of a chain reaction in the unit.
Enjoy the music while you read

Movement and Promotions

Metamorphyse is the new EU XO and gets promoted from
Staff Sergeant -> Second Lieutenant.

Metamorphyse will be replacing DirtyDozen, that gets promoted from 2nd Lieutenant -> 1st Lieutenant
when moving on to the EU CO spot, replacing Ekis that moves on to the DO position.

Silvan is moving up from the SL to the PL position for Cursed Earth,
replacing Metamorphyse, and in the process gets promoted from Sergeant -> Staff Sergeant.
Koltira is replacing Silvan as the SL for Cursed Earth and gets promoted from
Corporal -> Sergeant.

Meanwhile in the Radiators, Corpse is taking over the PL position.
Domanator is replacing Corpse as the SL for the Radiators
and gets promoted from Private First Class -> Sergeant.

Cleaning up old promotions that didn't take due to technical circumstances,
LordScrewball is finally promoted from Private First Class -> Sergeant
for taking the SL position in Mutually Assured Destruction (M.A.D.).
Sorry for the delay, Lord.

Daily NA practices FTW

Dapeople will be playing weekdays at 21:00 EST (that's 03:00 CET for the EU folks) for at least one hour.
Just pop in to TeamSpeak for some teamwork practices and fun with the guys.

In other news...

Badges are being worked on by the TI office. Special shout out to Commisare that have done an awesome job with the tests.
Well done, dude!

We are also approaching mid season for DEFCON 1.
Rumour has it that something special is going to happen...

DEFCON 1 rolling on, and personnel changes!

2012-02-25T11:17:00Z

Another Update from Nuclear Dawn.
I work on mainframes, so get used to the batch format.
Also, I type this in my COBOL editor

Promotions

For stepping up as PL's:

Kazunari Corporal -> Gunnery Sergeant
RoboRob Private First Class -> Staff Sergeant
Metamorphyse Private First Class -> Staff Sergeant
VoxSerico Private First Class -> Staff Sergeant

For stepping up as SL:

Goorge Private First Class -> Sergeant
LordScrewball Private First Class -> Sergeant
Silvan Private First Class -> Sergeant

For stepping up as TI:

LordPeppe Private First Class -> Corporal
Commisare Private First Class -> Corporal

For stepping up as DI:

DanishNutterPrivate First Class -> Corporal

Last, but certainly not least, I like to welcome Icewhynd as the new SO for EU.
Good luck dude, and bring me them Recruits!

Medals and Awards

Outstanding Volunteer Medal:
DanishNutter
Recruiting Medal:
Ekis
Recruiting Badge: Basic:
DirtyDozen
Caboose
Corpse

Internal Tournament

Named DEFCON, started on Sunday the 5th of February.
Match-dates are Sundays and Wednesdays
at 21:00 CET / 15:00 EST (be 10 - 15 min early ).

Meet the Platoons of DEFCON 1

Wastelanders
Platoon Leader - Kazunari
Squad Leader - Goorge

Mutually Assured Destruction
Platoon Leader - RoboRob
Squad Leader - LordScrewball

Cursed Earth
Platoon Leader - Metamorphyse
Squad Leader - Silvan

Radiators
Platoon Leader - VoxSerico
Squad Leader - Corpse

Nuclear Dawn Promotional Bonanza Update

2012-01-08T07:45:00Z

Things are moving along nicely here in Nuclear Dawn...

We are closing in on the 80 mark after a very successful recruiting drive during the free weekend.
More Recruits means more work, and more work means a chance to shine!
Here are the latest batch of promotions:

DirtyDozen did such a good job as an SO that he got awarded more work.
Congratulations on the XO job, Dirty!

Takahoshi is taking over as the SO.
This guy is like a recruiting machine!

Speaking of dedicated machines, we got another one in the shape of a
WeirdLooking Server Administrator.

Teaming up with WeirdLooking is Marudor.
Marudor is the SA for the EU side.
He is also known as the guy that programs for TAW.

Kooma have stepped up as a TI.
He is the guy with some seriously mad MS-Paint skills that blinged out our TS channels.
Well done, dude!

As if that wasn't enough, the DI office got reinforcements as well.
DanishNutter is stepping up as a DI for the EU side.
Thanks for stepping up to the plate, man!

In other news

The work with the training manuals for the badge tests are progressing.
Kooma have been working on cleaning up some map overview images that
WeirdLooking made. They look really good and should make planning a lot easier for the PL's.
Good work guys!
You can find some of their efforts here:
http://taw.net/wikis/nuclear-dawn/nuclear-dawn-map-layouts.aspx

Our server is pretty much full around the clock these days and we are
looking into expanding the machine park. For this to happen we
need to see some donations first.
For a small, monthly donation you can make that happen.
Bring on the good karma right here folks:
http://tawtreas.clanservers.com/donations.htm

Speaking of servers, I like to remind people to not TAW-stack one side.
Its not easy sometimes, but try to split up the best you can.
You also have full access to the Match Server, so don't be shy using them.

ND Release imminent!!1!

2011-09-24T17:40:00Z

The Nuclear Dawn beta phase will end on the 25th and the game will be officially released.
The EU ND Division will have a celebratory ND releasefest at 20:00 CET / 14:00 EST or 11:00 if you live on NA West coast.

Everyone is welcome to pop in for some gaming fun or just a chat!

Nuclear Dawn is open for business!

2011-09-03T15:05:00Z

Post Apocalyptic Warfare, Frantic FPS Action, Intense RTS management, Awesome Teamwork, combine all this and you get the game Nuclear Dawn.

In development by InterWave Studios and built on the Source engine, Nuclear Dawn features a full RTS-experience next to an expansive team play oriented FPS with asymmetrical factions.

As a lowlife peon on the field you can choose out of 4 very distinct classes:

Exo; As close to a tank as a simple infantry unit can get, the Exo uses heavy weaponry to put either enemy infantry through the meat grinder or let enemy buildings meet annihilation.
Stealth; Being the sneaky rat a true Stealth player is and having access to a cloaking device, you'll either be sneaking up to your enemies to stab them in the back, using your fast movement speed or you'll cowardly stay in the back and put a bullet into your enemy from long ranges.
Assault; The ultimate sneaky rat determent, the Assault class has a thermal visor that allows them to see enemy Stealths, even when they are cloaked. Combined with a broad range of weapons to select from, the Assault is a force to be reckoned with.
Support; In case you care much for the well-being of your teammates or for the health of your buildings, Support is the class you want to be. With the choice from a medic layout or an engineer layout you'll be sure to be able to patch up something. Not to mention the flamethrower that can melt anything in it's path.

As the commander you get access to pretty much everything you're used to from a RTS game.

You'll have buildings to build, resources to spend on said buildings, energy to distribute to make the buildings work, upgrades to research and teammates to command.

Do keep in mind though that those awesome teammates you're supposed to command might not act like you're used to from your typical RTS, something called "free will" tends to have that effect on grunts.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't be supporting those grunts with your turrets, supply points and forward spawns, because you're relying on the common foot soldier to get your steady stream of resources to spend.

For more info on this, there is a very handy video that explains the main game mode.

(Please visit the site to view this media)

For more info you can head to the official website, which has more detailed info on the game, including a fact-sheet with a good overview of the game.

Another option is of course to head straight over to the Steam store page, where you can pre-order the game and get access to the beta that is running right now.

The official release is currently set for the 25th of September.

For further questions you can go to either Ekis or Corpse and your questions will be answered the best they can. Transfer request are always welcome too of course ;)

Promotions

2011-08-31T21:14:00Z

Nuclear Dawn is now open for business!

Newly appointed positions in the Nuclear Dawn Division:

Ekis SO

Corpse DI

Both of these fine gentlemen are from the EU side of ND.